Draft 53: Eclogue

1. "The children of your children
will gather up these pears"

Bitty pears petites poires.
But what about beginnings,
girl, where
knots of knotted self
entangle greeny
labyrinths?

Flicker
word
here
liking butter (cups)
streaks of pee-pee dandelion
on the arms
"Paint you"
Such a present participle
such turbulence
along the mixèd weave of grass.

Green ribbon
green light
pulse of the green Granny apple
rusty bite, little mite,
outside green leather
inside green linen
velvet bosky dress-up
into the basket with you.

2. Crystal tree in wine
edged by light
who gave the dog
dying
under the hedge
in a foreign land
WATER
water from your little bottle
and your little hand,
two bowls of just-milked milk.

3. "a llittle girl in the phalllic phase"
En garde!
Flex those extra l's, those l's and elle's
of electricity
wielding foil, mask, and vest.
Impossible to argue against the detail.
And lunge!

Since these were actual typos
in Freud's essay on female sexuality
the resistance to his theory
from the wounded acolyte
or witty typesetter
all this excess and wrongness
thinking about gender
is (finallly, so to speak) very funny.
Though, as Woolf said, remember
the gender cockadoodledum
that once brought tears to their eyes.

4. Watermelon
mottled black-brown seeds to spit
pink baby juice
of "acqua melone"
please yourself
"no" rarely stops you
the accidents buoyant
neither does "nix."

Make One poem easy?
This one could
either be easiest
or hardest
given complicated
differential love
and hypnogogic
sliding words.

Sprinkles in hand,
frosting to squeeze,
electric mix, you make
your own birthday cake.

5. I saw a salamander poop! quietly and satisfied
a little twist up of its delicate tail and one leg.
Something I'd never caught before
in Virgilian discussions of singing and song.
Notational the rain that falls
bright silver drops
because a little cloud was prised and primed
with sweetness
and fierce streaky brightness.

Some drew ballerinas, twinkly ladies,
others drew missiles and fighter bombers,
you used to draw apples
bright red apples round and snug
within a brighter tree.

I've heard of a place where they offer bread
to the apple tree, carrying loaves out
in procession to hang up in the leaves.
Giving something back.
Thank you, trees.

6. First born bugs of a temperate spring
pin-small with pointed tails
have fallen over, twisting their grey wing-veils, an
impossible struggle to turn
over, get up, go
where they list fly, or find
out what the world enormous
is, even within the tiny spot-
shine of this limit, life-span.
They struggle
to balance themselves
in it.

The flowering pear's a bit too shaded where we put it
yet finding its way between an old oak
and a grand grey beech, arking out
already an allegory—
like little mouse space under the cow arch
cuckoo clocking in the bosco, counting mournfully.

The whirlwind is lonely. "She wants her mommy."

7. Special cup, special bowl
not vulnerable to colds
but to bad social policies
a way of reflecting.
The hand goes out
for every texture
touching walls
stroking stone
fingering fur
flicking stucco
in order to find out how it all feels.
By 5 had been in 22 states
whittling sticks and running
and at least 7 countries
maybe more—
global girl
living amid selfishness
and post-cold war comforts
we fail the children of our species.

Ours have 30 kinds of toothpaste
others their skin, their eyes are cracked
they learn to cry
in silence.

8. Zero is a dead one
two will equal one plus nought
Inside one is two,
too. Inside one was
nothing more.
"Where is she hiding?
O where is she
hiding?"

9. Bird is pecking seed worm bark
leaf is blown repeatedly against the branch

and then children's noise
giggles and bright cries
puncture the shaky mother
a holstein floating in a moony sky.

Mothering
a pulsing passage of light
across a light-sensitive surface
inside the black cup of night
inside the sweetish brackish day
rushing, but to no end
infrared, infrablue
infra true.

10. Puella
endowed with the gesture
punctuate virgule:
vir-girl.
inside the terrible skin of
our own time.
lines up fluffy animals
sets flocks around the bed
to shepherd.
nuzzle amuse-guele
amuse-girl
kissing and kissing
the silk skin of one's young
and the soft skin of one's old

redbird greybird
through the window
chunky the pink flush underside
like the dawn of a world
without pesticide.

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